Himitsu Shinu
by Akyesein
Summary: Centuries have passed. With the Sword keeping him immortal, he has seen the world change with the passing years. The mononoke grow stronger just as he feels his power wane. It is only a matter of time before he meets his end. T for violence/death.
1. Prologue: Wandering

**Disclaimer:** I do not, nor will I ever own Mononoke. I am merely toying with its main character to suit my own fangirl-isms.

**Author's Note: **Please note that this is still a draft at this point. There is a very good chance that it will be undergoing a few changes soon. But for now, please enjoy!

**Edit 3-8-2011: **Ok, I've had this chapter beta'd for a while now, and I've only just now gotten around to putting it up. It's pretty much the same as the first draft, except for a couple minor grammatical errors that have been fixed.

Enjoy!

* * *

Himitsu Shinu

Prologue

February 3, 2011

11:42 PM, EST

Time was beginning to wear on him. He had long lost track of the many years he had seen pass before his eyes, and he had stopped caring somewhere during the early nineteenth century. Or was it the eighteenth?

There, you see? No sense of the passage of time.

He, of course, changed as much as his surroundings, always so meticulous about his appearance, careful that every detail blended in with the ordinary rabble as much as possible. Worn boots had replaced _geta_ sandals, while faded jeans had taken the place of his _hakama_. The old shirt he wore he had fashioned himself from scraps of his old _kimono_, and a tattered trench coat kept the still-brightly colored silk from attracting too much attention to himself. He was many things, but self-centered he was not; he already got enough attention from his facial markings and pointed ears. Those markings could never be hidden completely - no matter how much makeup he wore to cover them. Instead, he simply let much of his hair hang in his face. The ears he could hide with a hat, fortunately, but they were not fool-proof; a gust of wind or a careless bump could knock the hat loose.

He went without the hat, most days, favoring instead the same violet headscarf he had worn so many centuries ago. The scarf was much easier to deal with than the hat.

As for how he dealt with society, well… One might say that he simply did not. The authorities in many countries did not always take kindly to those who had no identity to speak of. Some would go as far as automatically assume him a terrorist and either throw him in prison, hand him over to an intelligence agency for questioning, or simply deport him, all without a second thought. He was sure that he had had to deal with all three of those circumstances at one point in time. As governments were getting more and more paranoid as time went on, they would certainly consider him a threat if he drew their attention. After all, he had no name, no social security number, no passport, no driver's license, not even a date of birth or medical records of any kind.

In short, he didn't exist. Not legally, anyway.

He couldn't even continue his preferred profession of selling medicines. Much of what he had sold in past centuries had been deemed illegal in many parts of the world, and pharmaceutical companies had long since taken up selling everything else.

However, he still managed to make enough money by selling his wares regardless of laws. Humans from the dregs of society often came to him out of need. It was a need caused by pain, fear, anxiety, want, stress, any number of human emotions that are difficult to deal with, but always fade with the passage of time. He felt no pity for those people; it was their own fault, after all, their own choice to hide behind their insecurities and to drown their various sorrows with whatever they could get their hands on.

That was what he was reduced to. Hiding in the shadows, selling his medicines and drugs to whomever was desperate enough to pay, never staying in one place for more than a few days before moving on, never staying in the same place twice, for risk of being remembered. A face like his was never easily forgotten.

And the _mononoke… _How he dreaded the _mononoke_ of this time. They rarely killed, which was a blessing in itself, but they endured, neither moving nor attacking, preferring to wait until he drew near. Time increased a _mononoke's_ strength. The more time passed by before he found them, the stronger they were.

It had gotten to the point where the _mononoke_ were stronger than he was, even in his demon form. Were it not for the Sword, he would not be alive.

Even so, every time he faced _mononoke,_ he felt his strength wane. If it continued, and he knew it would, he would soon be at half the strength he had when his power was at its greatest, all those centuries ago in feudal Japan. He would ignore the _mononoke_ if he could, run away from then even, in order to preserve his life, but he could not. When he had first taken up the Sword of Exorcism, he took an oath, one that could not be broken save by death, stating that so long as he lived, he would use everything in his power to eradicate the _mononoke._ Fail, and he would die. Succeed, and he would continue to live. For over half a millennia, he had stuck to his oath, and, as promised, he had continued to live, never aging, never growing old.

He had grown to hate that oath.

It was not the first time, either.

_He had been human, once upon a time. A foolish young doctor, wandering from village to village, peddling his medicines and healing what minor illnesses he could. He was not very skilled in the art of healing, but when it came to medicines, he was one of the best._

_The day the Sword of Exorcism had come into his possession was a very strange day indeed. He had entered a village on the pretense of selling medicines like he always did, but he had barely taken two steps into the village square when he had people begging him to save a person who seemed to be very important to them. They had led him to a dying man lying on an old futon. The man was haggard and feverish; his long, bony hands clutched at the bedding beneath him and his breathing seemed to be nearing a death rattle._

_He had knelt next to the dying man, intent on doing what little he could to ease the man's agony, when all of a sudden, those bony white hands had taken hold of the front of his kimono._

_"Take it," the man had rasped in his ear. "The Sword… take it." A pause while the man drew another ragged breath. "It must… have… a master. There must al… always be… one. Always one… against… the… _mono… no…ke_…" The man's hands slackened, and he fell back, unusual pale blue eyes staring at nothing. He was dead._

_There had been a small, sheathed blade by the dead man's side. Its hilt sported what appeared to be a shrunken monkey's head, teeth grinning widely and black eyes shining eerily. He picked up the sword as the man had asked…_

_…And the next thing he knew, he was regaining consciousness elsewhere._

_He soon learned how to use the Sword, how to fight the _mononoke_. He learned how to find the _katachi_, or form the _mononoke _had taken on; the _makoto_, or the truth behind the _mononoke_'s creation; and the _kotowari_, or the reason behind the _mononoke_'s actions._

_And as time went on, he learned that time could not touch him. He eventually found that he had no choice but to watch everyone around him grow old and die while he remained the same._

_He had had family once, all those centuries ago. He had watched them die: first his mother passed, with his father following a few years later. Then his elder brother was killed in a dispute over money. His brother's wife and children did the best they could, but they ended up living out the rest of their lives in poverty. Once each of those children grew old enough, they went off on their own. The girl he had been hoping to marry was wedded to another man, and she was perfectly happy with that man, at least until she died of illness after less than five years of marriage. The one child she had managed to have before then had been stillborn._

_Soon, there was no one left. He was alone._

_Loneliness had been a new sensation to him. Until then, he had remained near one family member or another, but never interacting with them, which allowed him to stave off loneliness to a degree._

_He had wanted to die. He had tried to kill himself, even. Just a few creatively mixed medicines, and it would be over. But the Sword wouldn't let him. Every time he had tried, his entire body had frozen, unable to move or speak until any and all thoughts of suicide had left his mind._

_That was the first time he regretted making the contract with the Sword. He had been forced to watch everyone he ever cared about die, all for the sake of being master to a demon sword…_

A chill wind stirred his clothes. He shivered, pulling his coat tighter around himself before hefting his bag back onto his shoulder. A few of the scales inside the old backpack jangled against each other. He wrinkled his nose, trying to bring some feeling back into his face.

_Damned cold,_ he thought. His breath formed a little cloud every time he exhaled. It was times like this that he longed for a place to stay. Even a filthy room in a seedy motel in the worst part of town would do, so long as it had a temperature that was somewhere above freezing. It seemed that even that was beyond his reach at the moment; he had no money and it was most likely that it would be a while before he would have enough money to pay for _anything_, let alone a room for a night.

He walked down the empty streets, trying his hardest to ignore the biting cold that he could never seem to get used to. The bag on his shoulder was lighter than he liked; he hadn't had any money for quite some time, so he couldn't buy any drugs to resell. He had had to steal the last batch of it, and it was only a matter of time before he would have to do so again. The only food he had had in his possession in the past week had been eaten that morning; he technically didn't need food to survive -the Sword ensured that- but he preferred having food to being constantly on the verge of starving to death.

A week. He could wait a week before he got desperate enough to steal and risk being noticed by the authorities.

He turned into a trash-littered alley. The buildings on either side blocked the wind; it would do. He sat down on the ground, bag held tightly in his lap, back pressed against the wall. He wrapped his coat tighter around himself and shut his eyes. Any hope of sleep was wishful thinking; the best he could hope for was that he would remain undisturbed as he waited for morning.

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**Author's Note: **I apologize for the general short-ness of this chapter. I will try to make the chapters longer in the future.

I should also mention the title. _Himitsu Shinu_ approximately means "Dying Secret" or "Dead Secret." I suppose it could also mean "Secret Death," but I may be wrong on that one.

Please review! I thrive off of comments and constructive criticism. Feedback please!

-Hikari


	2. Chapter 1: Bleeding

**Disclaimer: **I do not, nor will I ever own Mononoke. I am merely toying with its main character to suit my own fangirl-ish tendencies.

**Author's Note: **As with the prologue, this chapter is an early draft. I will undoubtedly revise it at some point in the near future. Until then, please enjoy what is here!

**Edit 3-8-2011: **This chapter has been beta'd! Yay! Enjoy!

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Himitsu Shinu

Chapter 1

February 4, 2011

3:21 AM, EST

It was the sound of sirens that woke him. He snapped awake and looked around, wide-eyed, for the source. A fire engine blazed past, lights flashing blindingly in the pre-dawn. He let out the breath he was holding and leaned back up against the wall, breathing slowly, trying to calm his racing heart.

'_Pathetic,'_ the voice in his head growled. '_Frightened by a human creation… Absolutely pathetic.'_

_'Shut up,'_ he thought back as he shut his eyes again. Dawn was still a few hours away; more rest would do him good.

'_Ignoring me won't work_,' the voice snapped. '_We have a contract, after all…'_

Much to his relief, the voice faded to the back of his mind for the moment. He got to his feet, deciding that it was no use trying to go back to sleep when his whole body was stiff with cold. He winced as pain shot through his right side.

It was not the first time he had become injured while fighting a _mononoke._ True, it had become a regular occurrence in recent decades, but injuries were not uncommon for him even when he was at the height of his power.

He put a hand to his side and was alarmed to find that something wet was soaking through his shirt. A large part of him hoped that it was just because some dog decided to pee on him while he was sleeping, but the fact that the outside of his coat was completely dry proved otherwise. He rummaged in his backpack for something to help stop the bleeding. All of his medicines were gone -he'd sold the last of them a few days before- and it seemed as though he had forgotten to buy bandages the last time he had money.

Oh, right, he had used it all to buy that last batch of drugs… and the money he got from those drugs had been squandered on food for the most part. He had planned on saving what he had left, until some idiot went and stole it…

The only things he had in his backpack were his scales, a small container of salt, his rubber-band bound paper seals, the Sword in its box, and his other set of clothes. Not only were those clothes blood-spattered (the pants were also vomit-stained, but he didn't want to dwell on that disgusting memory), but the shirt had a huge rip on the right side where the mononoke had slashed him. That shirt was most likely beyond repair; it certainly was not wearable in its present state.

It would do.

What with it being about three o'clock in the morning, there was no one around. Fortunately, this was one of the emptier parts of the city, which meant it was unlikely that anyone would stumble upon him. He shrugged his coat off and dropped in onto the ground at his feet. As he sat back down on the cold ground, he undid the buttons on his shirt. The shirt joined the coat a moment later. He shivered at the biting cold, but gritted his teeth and ignored it as best he could.

It was difficult to see what he was doing, but the combination of the yellow street light a little ways away and his relatively decent night-vision (he saw better than a human in the dark, at the very least) meant he was able to make out the three long claw marks left by the _mononoke._

It had not been very difficult to discover the _katachi, makoto,_ or _kotowari _(a man had murdered his ex-wife in a dispute over their daughter's guardianship, and, rather than the typical revenge, the woman's spirit desired to spent eternity with her daughter. And "eternity" meant killing the girl. Revenge on her ex-husband was simply a plus)_. _However, that _mononoke _had been excruciatingly annoying in the way it liked to escape any sort of barrier he put up against it. Even his paper seals -even after centuries, they were still effective, usually- hadn't lasted more than ten minutes. At one point, the _mononoke_ had managed to get close to its target. He had stepped in to protect the teenage girl, and had managed to drive it away for a few minutes, but he had been too slow and the_ mononoke _had struck. It had missed any vital organs, fortunately, but the hours following had been hell, to say the least. Not that it wasn't anything he hadn't had to deal with before.

Still, he would have preferred it if the wound would heal already. It had been nearly two weeks, after all.

As he fumbled with numb fingers, he tore the more decrepit of his two shirts into workable pieces and wrapped the strips of cloth around his midsection as tightly as he could without restricting his breathing. The cloth was slowly darkening with blood, but the wound seemed to be clotting over again.

'_You're not going to last much longer like this,'_ the voice said. '_You're lucky you haven't bled to death already.'_

He growled. '_I know that,'_ he snapped in reply.

'_It's in my best interest that you stay alive, you know.'_

_'Will you just shut up, already? I don't want to deal with you right now.'_

_'Daisuke…'_

"No!" he shouted aloud. Immediately after he said it, he winced at the sudden loud noise. "No… That name… is not mine."

'_But it used to be.'_

He shook his head, determined to ignore the voice, however futile that idea may have been. He finished knotting the makeshift bandages and reached for his shirt. He pulled it on, grimacing at the coldness of the still-wet blood stains. He continued shivering even after he had put his coat back on.

He got to his feet, slowly, more carefully this time. While the wound complained, there was no sharp pain, no sudden bleeding as before.

After returning his backpack to his shoulder, he started back off down the street, not having any idea as to where he was going, just knowing he would not stop until well after sunrise.

* * *

Washington, DC

February 7, 2011

10:00 AM, EST

David Burke was not happy. Already, he had a workload the size of a mountain, and he had had his superior breathing down his neck for the past week about his report on the last case he had taken care of.

And it wasn't even noon yet.

He had no doubt that he'd be able to get all of that work done relatively quickly—probably less that three days to get it all done—but he certainly wasn't looking forward to it.

The paperwork was nothing new; just the usual hoops that he was forced to jump through as per the FBI's regulations. It was just the sheer amount of it that he had to take care of that he didn't like.

His report wouldn't take very long, however. He had more than half of it done, already. Mainly, he just had to tag on his views on how it all ended up.

Just as he turned on his computer to finish his report, the phone rang. Not taking his eye off of his computer screen, he picked up the receiver after the first ring.

"Burke," he said. He held the phone to his ear with his shoulder as he typed.

"Hey," a woman's voice said.

"What is it, Alex?" Alexandra Ortiz, known by most as Alex, was David's partner and closest friend. They had been engaged at one point in time (meaning, about ten years before when they were both still naïve and in their twenties), but they had decided not long after that they were better off as friends.

"I got something you might be interested in."

"Can it wait?" he replied, still trying his hardest to type with his shoulder pressing the phone to his ear. "I've got—oh, crap." The phone slipped out from between his shoulder and the side of his face and fell down into his lap. He picked it back up, this time holding it with his left hand and he continued to type (awkwardly) with his right. "Sorry, dropped the phone. I've got a shitload of work I have to take care of, and McCain's been hounding me for that report like there's no tomorrow."

"Well, that's what you get for taking a week off."

"I know, I know. So what is this thing that you think will interest me?"

"Get down here, and you'll see."

"Alex, come on, just tell me."

He heard a sigh on the other end. "Painted face."

He stopped typing abruptly. Those two words were all it took.

"Another one?" he asked.

"Yep. It's pretty recent, too."

"How recent?"

"Hmm… Looks like ten days ago."

David hurriedly saved what little progress he had made on his report before switching the monitor of his computer off. "I'll be right there."

"Ha," Alex laughed. "Knew I could interest you."

David hung up the phone and practically ran out of his office and down the hall.

There was one string of cases that had captured David's attention for a long time. He had stumbled across them not long after he had started work at the FBI. No two of the cases were exactly the same, but they all had the same three things in common: the gruesome deaths of at least one person, usually more; eyewitnesses in a state of complete shock, though they all claimed to having been attacked by an evil spirit of some kind; and there was always one person that appeared at the site of each:

The man with the painted face.

David had investigated several of those cases, and by then he was sure that the man with the painted face was responsible for each and every one of the murders.

But there were times when he doubted that conclusion.

Eyewitnesses of those crimes almost always said that the man with the painted face had saved them from the evil spirits that had been trying to kill them. Anyone who didn't proclaim the strange man a hero was usually too traumatized to give a statement.

All the more reason for David to find the truth behind it all.

There was one other thing that baffled him, however:

The Painted Face Murders, as he called them, spanned decades, going back as far as any police records he had access to could go, spanning nearly a century, if not more. David suspected that the man with the painted face was an identity that had been passed down from one person to another through the years. Surely, that was the only explanation.

"That was fast," Alex commented as David practically skidded into her office.

"What happened this time?"

"You mean other than the usual claims of vicious ghosts running rampant? I don't have the all the teeny details here, but one of the victims, a man named Justin Destler, claimed that the spirit of his dead wife was trying to kill both his and his daughter."

"Destler… where have I heard that name before?"

"Unless you suddenly decided to see that slasher version of the Phantom of the Opera, it's probably because this guy, Destler, killed his wife a while back over a custody dispute. He was recently released from prison, and had been trying to visit his daughter when the whole ghost business started. It seems the girl was the main target, though."

"Huh. And where does Painted Face come in?"

"He showed up on the scene not long after the chaos had set in. But that's not the best part." Alex pulled up a video file on her computer. "Destler's daughter, Alicia, had been living with her grandparents ever since her father got put in prison. But, when Destler got out of prison, he started trying to visit his daughter without the grandparents knowing. When they found out, they put security cameras up around the outside of the house so they'd know when their crazed son-in-law showed up."

The video was in black-and-white and of mediocre quality, as far as security cameras go, but it distinctly showed a haggard-looking man creeping around the outside of the house near the back door. Or, rather, he was trying to creep through deep snow. At one point, he stumbled, disappearing for a moment below the snow, only to pop back up a moment later, shaking snow from his hair.

"That's Destler." The man moved out of the camera's view. The camera switched to the front yard to show a second man standing in the knee-deep snow. He wore in ragged clothes, and a backpack hung from his left shoulder. It was difficult to see, but the man's mouth seemed to be moving. David could also barely make out a set of odd markings on his face. Alex fast-forwarded the video for a few seconds, and then set it to normal speed again in time to see the man walk towards the house and out of view.

David was excited. This was the first time in about ten years that the man with the painted face had been caught on any kind of surveillance. It was difficult to make sure, what with the grainy quality of the video, but he was sure that the strange man looked the same as he had the last time.

But there was only one way to be sure…

"Where was this?"

"Over in Albany, why?"

"You think McCain will let us take a closer look?"

"By us, you mean you, right? I'll just end up going because I'm your partner and I can't let you get your sorry ass killed."

"Exactly."

"Hmm… he might. Provided you have your report done before you start pestering him. You _did _finish it, right?"

He hesitated for a moment. "Yes…?" A sheepish grin accompanied his blatant lie.

Alex's hands went to her hips. '_Uh-oh. She's in scold mode…'_

"Come one, David. Work, _now_." She pointed her finger in the general direction of his office.

"Fine, fine," he replied with a grin. She smiled back even as she continued to shoo him away.

Even as he finished his report, David could hardly keep his thoughts focused on the task at hand. Another Painted Face murder…

And this time, he was sure that it would bring him a step closer to finally finding the Man with the Painted Face.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Ok, it's a bit longer this time. Getting closer to my preferred chapter length.

Two new characters have been introduced! Out of the two of them, it is David that will play a more central role in all of this, but Alex will certainly have a decent part in everything.

And all I can say is poor Kusuriuri-san... I'd give him a hug, if I could.

Oh ho, and what is this? A name? Haha, well, more on that still to come!

Next Chapter: David and Alex investigate the most recent Painted Face Murder. As for Kusuriuri-san, well... You'll have to wait and see!

Please review! Constructive criticism is preferred, but feedback of any kind is appreciated!


	3. Chapter 2: Investigating

**Disclaimer: **I do not, nor will I ever own Mononoke. I am merely toying with its main character to suit my own fangirl-ish tendencies.

**Author's Note: **Okay, it's not a first draft for once! This chapter has been fully edited and beta'd! Wheee!

**EDIT 9-20-2011: **Turns out there was a word choice error in this chapter, adn. Thanks to Tuulikki for pointing it out!

I just want to thank my beta ElisiansBane for being working with me here, and I want to thank my best friend Donna (aka Inkheart37) for helping me work out plot issues. You both are awesome!

* * *

Himitsu Shinu

Chapter 2

Washington, DC

February 8, 2011

9:46 PM, EST

David sat at his desk late into the night. Nearly everyone else had gone home, save for a few stragglers and the occasional security guard. A stack of old Painted Face Murder files sat open on his desk. He shifted through them, reading over all the little details he had long since committed to memory.

Some of them were digitally enhanced copies of decades-old files that had long since become too faded to read otherwise. Those were little more than vague details scribbled down by people who wrote everything off to a combination of trauma, anxiety, and superstition.

As the years had gone by, the files slowly became more detailed. There were several in a row, occurring in during the late 1950's and ending sometime around the early 1970's, that had all been put together by the same person. That person, a now-retired detective named Nathan Stiger, seemed to have come to the same conclusion David had: the Man with the Painted Face is the one behind it all. Or, so David liked to believe. He wasn't entirely certain, to tell the truth.

A few years before, David and Alex had visited Mr. Stiger.

"Don't know if there's much I can tell you," Stiger had said, studying the both of their faces intently. Stiger had been an old man nearly in his nineties, unable to walk and confined to a wheelchair, but his tongue had been sharp and his mind bright. His voice had been slow and clear, and had carried a strong southern drawl. "Seems to me like you two know more about this than I do."

"I don't know about that, Mr. Stiger," David had replied. "You worked on these cases for more than twenty years."

"And all without a thing to show for it," had been the reply.

"Mr. Stiger, there was one thing that we had been meaning to ask you," Alex had asked. It had been the first time she had spoken since they had arrived at the assisted-living facility where Stiger had resided. "Looking through the cases you investigated, we couldn't help but feel that something was missing."

"And?"

"And we were wondering if there was anything that you neglected to include in the files."

"Hmm…" Stiger had been silent for a moment as he thought. "There was one thing… But I can't tell you."

"Mr. Stiger," Alex had interrupted firmly. "We are investigating a string of serial killings. If you do not give us the information we need, information we know you have, then we can hold you accountable by law."

"Calm down, missy! I ain't gonna keep any information from you! What I was gonna say was that I can't tell you much more than what's already there in those files. All I can tell you is that things ain't always as they appear. There are things greater than us that we can't even begin to understand, and that by getting to the bottom of all this, you two are meddling in things that don't like to be meddled with."

"You know something, don't you?" David had asked eagerly.

"Damn right I do. And I wish I didn't know any of it. What I know can't be put into words. It simply can't. There ain't no way to describe it. You want my advice? Leave all of this alone. You're not meant to know any more than that. Hell, you're not even supposed to know as much as you do! None of us are. Chasing after this is like chasing a ghost. Even if you do catch a glimpse of the truth, you'll never be able to catch hold. More than twenty years, and God knows I never managed it. Hell, I even spoke to him, and I'm just as clueless as I was before I even laid eyes on any of those cases!"

"Him? Who him? Who did you speak to?"

Stiger had looked at David with disdain. "I said too much already. You wanna know the truth, kid? You might as well find it on your own. Because I can't help you."

The old man had refused to say any more after that.

However, despite his insistences that he could not help, Stiger had provided David with to right motivation to keep pushing forward on the case.

But there was one thing that always left David wondering: who had Stiger spoken to? David had a feeling that it had been the Man with the Painted Face, but he could not be sure.

He had tried going back a few weeks later to speak to Stiger, but the old man had refused to see him. David had tried again, of course, but with no luck.

The third time David had gone back, he had been told by the staff of the assisted-living facility that Mr. Stiger had suffered a stroke and passed away.

David closed Stiger's old files and set them aside in favor of the three most recent ones. The first was from two years prior, the second from ten months ago, and the most recent from less than two weeks ago.

At the moment, the ten-month-old file was David's personal favorite. Why? Because it featured a composite sketch of the Man with the Painted Face.

The drawing showed a young man who appeared to be in his mid-twenties, give or take a few years. The man was fair-haired and pale-eyed, which was unusual, considering how the drawing showed him as being distinctly Asian. From what part of Asia, it was not clear. David could guess, of course, but composite sketches were not always the most accurate.

It was the way his face was painted that had David intrigued. Pale eyes ringed in some dark color, with tears of that same color drawn in below his eyes. A line of that same color decorated the bridge of his nose. His upper lip was painted, too, but with a lighter shade.

Aside from the occasional blurry security camera image every few years or so, the composite sketch was the only indication of what the Man with the Painted Face actually looked like.

Glancing over at the clock on the wall, David found that it was nearing ten o'clock. He sighed as he put the files back into the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet.

_Time to go home…_

* * *

Albany, New York

February 9, 2011

1:08 PM, EST

"I still think you're obsessed," Alex commented absentmindedly as she read the newest Painted Face file for what felt to her like the tenth time (and it probably was).

"Obsessed? What do you mean?" David replied as he drove.

"David, come on. We've been through this already. You act like these cases mean something to you."

"They do," David insisted. "Anyone would want to be the one to solve a string of serial killings."

"True," Alex agreed. "But you've been letting this take over everything you do. I told you yesterday that you make these cases a priority over all of your other work. It'll consume you if you're not careful."

David was silent for a moment before answering. "I'll be careful, you know that." She gave him a look that clearly said that she didn't entirely believe him. "Really, Alex, I will."

She shook her head, still not convinced. "Once this case is over with, you need to take a break for a day."

"And do what? I just took a vacation."

"Which you spent locked up in your apartment with the Painted Face Murder files."

"So? I didn't come to work."

"That didn't stop you from doing your work from home, though, did it?"

"Seriously, Alex, what would I do if I were to actually do this 'going out' thing you speak of?"

"Oh, I don't know. Go to a movie, get a drink with a friend or two, get yourself laid…"

"Are you offering?"

"What? No!" Alex slapped his arm. "My point is that you need to do more than work your ass off."

"Fine, fine, point taken."

They sat in silence for the remainder of the drive.

* * *

2:31 PM, EST

Snow crunched under the tires of their car as they pulled up the driveway of the crime scene. It hadn't taken them very long to get any information they needed from Albany's police department, mainly because they already had most of the information on the case already.

A police officer trudged across the snow-covered yard towards them.

"Thank you both for coming over here," the man said, shaking both of their hands. "No one here can make heads or tails of this mess."

"Well, I'm sure we'll be able to figure something out, Officer—" David paused.

"Carson," the policeman replied. "And you must be Agents Burke and Ortiz?"

"That's us," Alex confirmed.

"Excellent. If you'll come with me, I'll show you around here." Carson led them to the door, which had caution tape stretched across it, but was otherwise unlocked. "The scene's been cleaned up pretty good already by our people, but we haven't been able to find much of anything." Carson opened the door, and allowed them to step inside. "We've tried to preserve it as much as possible, though."

The stench of stale blood was immediate. It was splattered across the walls and floor of the entryway, with a trail of it leading further into the house. What was even more interesting was that nearly all of the walls were dotted with what looked like little rectangular pieces of white paper. Much of the paper was charred and some of it had been almost completely burned away.

A thin line of salt ran along the floor in the hallway that separated the kitchen, dining room, and living room. It was unbroken save for one place directly in front of the living room door.

"One of the bodies was found there," Carson said, pointing to a particularly bloody place on the floor outside of the salt line. "The other one was found in the living room, stuck to the ceiling. Took hours to get the poor man down."

The living room was the most decrepit of the, all. More blood trailed around the room, and there was a dark splotch of it in one corner that seemed to be the source of trail they had seen first walking in.

The blood was not the only thing. What looked to be claw marks had been gouged in practically every surface, from the seat cushions of the couch, to the lampshade, to the hardwood floor. There were more paper scraps on the walls, even more than had been in the foyer, some of them also rent with claw marks.

What was most intriguing, however, was the wide, black burn that seemed to go in a horizontal strip across the very center of the wall. Anything standing in front of the wall also had a burn, leaving the wall behind those objects perfectly blank.

_'Just like all the others,'_ David thought to himself.

"The people who were involved in this," David began, eyes still scanning the room, "Where are they now? Would it be possible to speak with them?"

"They're staying in a hotel on the other side of town, I think," Carson replied. "I don't know the address, but I can see about asking my superiors to call them up, maybe even get them to come by the station so you can talk to them."

"That would be great," Alex answered. She bent forward to examine one of the paper scraps more closely. "We'll let you know when we're cone looking this place over," she added. Carson nodded, and left the room.

"What do you think?" David asked after a moment.

"Well, the report said that Destler had been killed along with a fourteen-year-old girl that had been a guest the day this all happened. Carson said that the body stuck to the ceiling was a man, so it's safe to say that that was Destler."

"Which means that the other spot was the girl."

"Yeah," Alex agreed. "Poor kid."

"I'm not sure about this one," David said pointing to the third bloody patch in the corner of the living room. "The report said that the three who were left alive managed to escape with only a few minor cuts and bruises."

"And we know that there was only one other person at the scene." They exchanged glances.

"Seems like Painted Face was hurt pretty bad," David concluded, a glint in his eye.

"And judging by the amount of blood, it probably weakened him."

"Meaning he couldn't have gotten very far."

David grinned. _'This time,'_ he thought. _'This time, for sure.'_

* * *

Albany, New York

February 9, 2011

8:29 PM, EST

'_A little longer,'_ he told himself. '_Just a little longer, and everything will be alright again.'_

'_You don't know that for certain,'_ that ever-present voice in his head muttered.

'_Shut it,'_ he replied irritably. '_I need to concentrate.'_

He glanced around to reassure himself that no one was watching. The aisle he stood in was deserted, and he couldn't see any security cameras from where he was standing. Good.

The voice in his head seemed to sigh. '_I'll let you know if anyone is coming,' _it said in a resigned sort of tone.

He reached out, picked up a package of bandages, and tucked them into his coat as discreetly as he could. Several more bandages followed along with a bottle of painkillers.

'_Someone's coming,'_ the voice warned. '_You'd best move it along.'_

He hoisted his bag into a more comfortable spot on his shoulder and walked down the aisle as calmly as he possibly could. It took nearly every ounce of his concentration to keep his expression neutral even as stabbing pain shot through his side with every step.

He turned into another aisle a few rows over where an employee was rearranging items on one of the shelves. The employee gave a suspicious look as he walked past, but simply shrugged her shoulders and resumed working when he did nothing.

'_This might be a good time to get some food, as well,'_ the voice urged. '_You haven't had anything to eat for almost a week now, and it's starting to affect me, too.'_

_'I don't want to risk taking too much and being noticed,' _he argued as he began making his way to the store's exit. '_It's already hard enough to keep from dropping all of this. And besides, you remember what happened the last time we got caught by the authorities.'_

_'That was forty years ago,'_ the voice retorted, '_And you were able to talk your way out of it.'_

_'But there's no guarantee that I'd be able to do it again. Humans become more paranoid by the day.'_

_'True, true,'_ the voice agreed before falling silent once more.

He was almost at the door. Just a few more steps and he would be alright.

A trio of humans walked through the store's entrance, all talking loudly about something that made little sense to the former medicine-seller. One of them bumped into his right shoulder, elbow accidentally jabbing him right in the center of his wound. Taken by surprise, he cried out, dropping the items he had been hiding in his coat. A couple of the items skidded across the floor and through the alarm gates in front of the doors. The loud, high-pitched beeping of the alarm rent the air. The sound was painful to his sensitive ears; he tried to cover them both with one hand while clutching at the wound in his side with the other.

People were shouting. The man that had bumped into him took hold of his arm, possibly to help him up, possibly to restrain him.

Panic took him. He struck out against the person holding him; he felt his hand connect with the person's head. The hands gripping his arm let go. Blood was dripping down his side again and onto the floor, mixing with the thin layer of soapy water left behind by a recent mopping.

He tried to run. The hands grabbed hold of his arm again.

More shouting. More of it, now; louder.

He slipped on the wet floor and landed hard. His head cracked painfully against the floor, making stars flash before his eyes.

There were more hands on him, restraining him.

One pair of hands clamped cold metal onto his wrists.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Poor Kusuriuri-san got caught! I feels sorry for him. But, then, if he hadn't, I wouldn't really have much to move forward with, would I?

And we start to see a little more on the side of David and Alex. More from them to come.

Next Chapter: Alex and David dig deeper as they try to get to the bottom of things. And what happened to Kusuriuri-san?

Please review! Constructive criticism is preferred, but any kind of feedback is loved and appreciated!


	4. Chapter 3: Questioning

**Disclaimer: **I do not, nor will I ever own Mononoke. I am merely toying with its main character to suit my own fan girl-ish tendencies.

**Author****'s Note: **I apologize for the delay. This chapter is the longest one yet, and there was a period of about a week when I was plagued with writer's block. That, and I only really worked on this for a couple hours only two or three times a week. Heh.

A note about this chapter, and pretty much every chapter that will follow: there are a LOT of changes in point-of-view. I tried to make it as clear as possible when it comes to who is the focus, but if any of it is confusing to anyone, PLEASE let me know and I will edit accordingly.

Thanks, as always, to ElisiansBane, my wonderful beta, for her feedback and assistance.

Onward!

* * *

Himitsu Shinu

Chapter 3

Albany, New York

February 10, 2011

2:05 AM, EST

He didn't remember blacking out. He assumed it had happened not long after he had been forced into the backseat of a police cruiser, because when he came to, he was lying on a hard cot in what looked like some kind of holding cell. The lights in the hall outside of the cell were yellow fluorescents that gave off an ugly, high-pitched whine that would surely give him a headache before long.

He sat up slowly, for fear of opening his wound again. Looking around, he took stock of his situation. His coat and shoes were gone, as was his bag. Even his headscarf had been taken from him. The Sword was missing, as well. His shirt was open, he noticed, exposing what looked to be fresh bandages. There was a small amount of blood soaked into the bandage, but it was such a small amount that it was clear that the bleeding had stopped once again. His hair was coming loose from its restraints, causing much of it to fall into his face.

_'How long have I been out?'_ he asked in his thoughts.

_'A few hours,'_ the voice in his head replied. _'They fixed you up before bringing you here. Gave you painkillers, and everything. Also, your cellmate's been staring at you since you got here.'_

At that, he looked up to find a ragged man who looked to be in his late forties staring at him with curious eyes.

"'Bout time you woke up," the man said in a rough voice that betrayed years of smoking.

He looked away from the man, intent on ignoring him as much as possible.

A door slammed somewhere in the building. The way the sound reverberated through the air was disconcerting; it was… different, to say the least. A subtle difference, one a mortal wouldn't have been able to notice.

_'This place…'_ he thought.

_'Ah, noticed, have you?'_

He sighed and shut his eyes again as he leaned up against the wall behind him.

_'Why now…?'_

The voice in his head seemed to chuckle wryly. _'Can't catch a break, can you?'_ If he could have, he would have glared at the voice. Unfortunately, however, sharing a body did have its disadvantages. _'You can relax for a while, though,'_ the voice added after a moment. _'It's dormant for now.'_

_'How long?'_

_'You've got about half a day, at the very least. Forty-eight hours on the outside.'_

_'Longer than usual, then.'_

"Oy," the other man in the cell said. "How'd that happen?" he asked, indicating the wound.

He glanced over at the man, but said nothing.

He would not sleep, he decided. The apprehension in the air was too thick, as though something was holding its breath, just waiting to scream. And when it did, all hell would break loose.

* * *

Albany, New York

February 10, 2011

6:25 AM, EST

"David, remind me again why we're up this early?"

"Alex, I told you, I got a call last night from the police asking us to come by today."

"Did they say why?"

David looked over at her with a grin.

Her eyes widened. "Seriously…?"

"Yep. I asked Officer Carson to send out a report with Painted Face's description to all police stations within a hundred mile radius of here. He turned up late last night on the edge of town."

"So he's in custody?"

David nodded. "Police arrested him for stealing. Turns out we were right about him being wounded. He was trying to steal bandages and such."

"I just can't believe this," she exclaimed in disbelief. "Chasing after him all this time, and then all of a sudden he just turns up."

"Guess we got lucky this time," David replied, still grinning.

They pulled up to the police station a few minutes later.

An officer met them just inside the door.

"Agents, thank you for coming so quickly," the officer said. "I'm Richard Travis, the detective assigned to this case."

"You've got him here?" David asked.

Travis nodded. "He didn't put up a fight when he was brought down here last night. Seems as though he was injured pretty recently. Had to take him to the hospital to get him patched up; would have had him stay there for a couple days to recover, too, but this case is such high priority that we couldn't risk having him near anyone he could possibly harm."

"I can understand that," Alex commented.

"May we speak with him?" David asked.

"Sure," Travis motioned for them to follow him. "He hasn't said anything," Travis said as he led David and Alex to the interrogation room. "But maybe you'll have better luck with getting him to talk."

The man inside the room sat perfectly motionless, giving no indication as to whether or not he had heard the door open at all.

The Man with the Painted Face…

Painted Face was right. Pale eyes traced in deep claret, with markings like bloody tears drawn beneath his eyes. The same red colored the bridge of his nose. His upper lip was painted violet, giving the illusion of an almost feral smile.

The composite sketch, David decided, did not do the man justice. Even silent and motionless, the man carried an otherworldly air, accentuated not only by his facial markings, but by the strange pointed ears that poked out of his wheat-colored hair.

The man's shirt was partially open, revealing white bandages that wrapped around his midsection. A little bit of blood had soaked through them in one place on his right side.

David placed the file onto the table and sat down opposite the man. The man's pale blue eyes stayed fixed to the blank wall. He seemed completely oblivious, but David had the feeling that he was anything but.

"I'm Agent David Burke; this is my partner, Agent Alexandra Ortiz. We're going to be asking you a few questions."

No response.

"Can you tell us your name, for a start?"

Silence. The man remained perfectly still, staring at the wall behind David's head.

"Sir, unless you cooperate, we are going to be here for quite a while," Alex said, a little irritably.

Pale eyes flickered to Alex's face, then to David's. The look in those eyes was completely unreadable.

"I have time," was the sudden response. The man's voice was equally blank. He had a tiny bit of an accent - faint, barely noticeable, but it was there. Had it been stronger, David probably would have been able to place it.

"Name," David prompted, but the man had fallen silent once more.

After a moment, however, the man frowned ever so slightly. His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared for a split second before his face returned to its neutral state.

"Let's try something else," David began. "We are investigating a murder that resulted in the deaths of two people, and we know that you were present at the scene. Can you tell us what happened?"

Again, there was a momentary change in the man's expression. He almost seemed to be arguing with himself in his head.

There was a knock on the door, and Travis poked his head in.

"Agents, can I speak to you for a moment?"

Alex and David exchanged glances, and then followed Travis out of the room.

"What is it?" Alex asked.

"We've brought in Alicia Destler and her grandparents like you asked. They seem reluctant to talk about all of this again, though."

"I'll talk to them," Alex said. She turned to David. "You keep trying to get answers out of Painted Face. We'll get both sides of what happened, and then try to figure out what's going on here."

David nodded. Alex followed Travis down the hall to a different part of the building, and David went back inside the interrogation room.

The man had not moved even the slightest.

"As I was saying," David said as he sat back down across from the man. "Can you tell me what happened at the crime scene?"

The man fixed his eyes on David's face and stared, rather unnervingly, without blinking. He said nothing.

David sighed. _'This is going to take a while,'_ he thought.

"Okay, I can see you don't want to talk to me." David reached for the file and took out a few photos of the crime scene that had been taken a mere few hours after it had happened. "All you have to do is answer yes or no. Do you recognize the place in these pictures?"

The man gazed calmly at the pictures. "Yes," the man replied slowly in his blank, almost monotonous voice.

"Were you at the crime scene when it happened?"

"Yes," the man replied again.

David took out two more pictures, this time of the two victims. "These are photos of the people who were killed at the scene. Their names were Michael Destler and Gina Torres. Do you recognize them?" He pushed them towards the man, indicating that he should take them to get a proper look.

A pale hand—or rather, hands, seeing as the man's wrists were clamped together with a pair of handcuffs—snaked up from under the table. He touched the edge of one photo with two tapered, almost elegant fingers. His fingernails, long and claw-like, were painted the same pale violet that decorated his upper lip. He stared at the photos for a long moment before answering with a quiet "Yes."

"Did you kill these people?"

"No." The answer was immediate and full of conviction.

"Do you know who did?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me who?"

"I could… But you would not believe… anything I say."

David blinked. "And why not?"

The man met David's eyes once more. "There is… no proof."

"Humor me. I want to hear what you have to say."

The man pushed the photos back towards David. "These people… were not killed by human hands."

David frowned as he took the photos back and returned them to the file. "Could you explain?"

"They were killed by a… _mononoke._"

"A what?"

Painted Face blinked slowly and repeated the words. "A _mononoke._" He said it with great dislike, and what almost sounded like fear. Nervousness? No, that wasn't quite right. Apprehension? Perhaps. It was difficult to tell. All David knew was that the man's tone of voice in that moment sent chills down his spine, as though the very word was cursed.

"I don't know what that is."

"In your tongue, it would be called a… spirit, though I suspect 'demon' would be a better word."

David wondered why the man paused in his speech so often. He had no reason to, as far as he could tell. An eccentricity, perhaps? He'd have to remember to bring in someone to analyze his mental state.

"So you're saying that a ghost killed these people?"

"Yes."

"I have a hard time believing that."

"It is… the truth."

David frowned again. He needed a real explanation, but he decided to humor the man for the moment. "Alright, then, moving on. Do you know why this… ghost… killed those two people?"

"Yes."

"And why is that?"

"Revenge… desires. The usual reasons."

_'Usual?'_ David thought. "Why were you there?"

"To… kill the _mononoke."_

"Ghosts cannot be killed. They are already dead."

"They can be… driven away… from this realm."

_'This is getting ridiculous,'_ David thought before continuing. "And how long have you been… killing… these ghosts?"

"Many years."

'_Years? This guy looks at least ten years younger than me.' _"That leads me to another question that's been bothering me. Similar cases such as this one have been popping up all over the country, many of them going back more than a century. How is that possible?"

* * *

Alex let herself into a room just down the hall from the room where David was talking to the Man with the Painted Face. Inside the room, an elderly man paced back and forth, while his wife sat in a chair against the wall. A dark-haired girl of about thirteen sat next to her, wringing her hands anxiously.

"I'm sorry to have called you three in here so early," Alex said, not bothering to sit down. She hated sitting when she had work to do; standing helped her think better. Taking out her badge and showing it to them, she continued, "My name is Alexandra Ortiz and I am an agent with the FBI."

"The FBI?" the man said. Alex recalled the man's name from the case file: Thomas Coyle. His wife was Heather Coyle, and the girl was their granddaughter, Alicia Destler. "So you people were brought into this?"

"Yes, sir, we have. My partner and I have been investigating a series of similar cases, and we believe that this one in related to the others."

"How is it related?"

"That is what I am here to figure out. I had you three brought here so that you could tell me what happened that day."

"We already told the police everything we know," Mrs. Coyle said bitterly, stroking her granddaughter's hair.

"Yes," Alex agreed, "but I would like to hear it directly from you."

Mr. Coyle sighed before reluctantly launching into his account of what happened:

"It was Saturday evening, after dinner," Mr. Coyle began. "Alicia's friend Gina had come over earlier that day and had stayed for dinner. Both girls were upstairs in Alicia's room. My wife was in the kitchen, washing the dishes, and I was in the living room reading a book.

"After a while, I thought I heard a scuffling outside. When I went to check the security cameras, I saw my no-good son-in-law, Justin, sneaking around the side of the house. I went to grab my gun and chase him off, but he got inside the house before I could."

"That was when the craziness started," Mrs. Coyle cut in, still stroking Alicia's hair. "I heard Tom shouting, so I went to go see what was happening. Alicia heard, too, and she and her friend Gina started coming down the stairs."

"I don't even know what happened after that," Mr. Coyle said. "All I know is that one moment, I'm yelling at Justin to leave, and the next moment, he was being thrown across the room by something no one could see."

"That was when the front door opened," Mrs. Coyle said, "and the strangest man walked in. At first I thought that he was a friend of Justin's, but then he started talking about how there was some kind of demon in the house and it was his job to get rid of it."

Mr. and Mrs. Coyle continued to explain what happened. Alicia, however, stayed silent, choosing instead to continue wringing her hands rather than to pay attention to what her grandparents were saying.

"And then the man just got up and left without a word of explanation," Mr. Coyle finished. "I swear; if I ever see that man again, I'm going to get some answers out of him."

"No," Alicia said suddenly, looking at her grandfather with wide, dark eyes. "He saved me. The monster was chasing me, and he saved me."

"Can you tell me how he saved you?" Alex asked, turning her attention to the girl.

"I was trapped in a corner, and the monster was trying to get me, but the man stepped in front of me right when the monster tried to kill me with its claws. He tried using his little papers to stop it, but he was too slow, and the monster hit him instead of me. I remember seeing a lot of blood; it got all over my face and clothes. Then the man started talking to the monster."

"What did he say?"

"I don't know. I couldn't understand it."

"So he was speaking in another language?"

Alicia nodded. "He talked to the monster, and then I heard something metal clinking. Then the man disappeared, and someone else took his place."

"Someone else?"

"The Golden Man. He sounded the same as the other man, so I think it was the same person, but he looked a lot different. He said something else to the monster, but I couldn't hear what it was. Then he took out a flame sword, and killed the monster with it."

Alex raised an eyebrow at that. It was starting to sound like the girl was making it up, but her grandparents said nothing to debunk Alicia's story.

"The monster exploded like fireworks when the man hit it with his flame sword. When it was gone, the Golden Man disappeared, and the other man came back. He fell onto the floor, but he got right back up and walked back out the front door. He was bleeding a lot, still; he left a trail of it behind him."

"So you believe that man is not responsible for the deaths of your father and friend?"

"I know what I saw!" Alicia exclaimed. "It was the monster! I know it was!"

"I see." Alex paused for a moment, contemplating exactly what to do next. "The man you claim to have saved you is under investigation for potential involvement in numerous other cases spanning several years." _'How's THAT for an understatement?'_ she thought to herself before continuing. "As he was very much involved in this case, as well, it is possible that he was behind this instance as well as the others."

Alicia stared at Alex in disbelief.

"But first," Alex continued, "I need you three to verify something for me."

"Which is…?" Mr. Coyle asked.

"Last night, a man was brought in here for stealing and attempted assault. It just so happens that he fits the description of the man that showed up at your house that night. I need to three to verify that the man we have here is, in fact, the same man."

"That bastard is here?" Mr. Coyle asked, outraged. "Where is he?"

"Tom!" Mrs. Coyle scolded. "Language!" Alicia pulled her grandmother's hands off of her ears and glared at the woman.

"He is being interrogated at the moment by my partner. You won't be able to talk to him, however."

"Where is he?" Alicia asked, almost timidly.

"If you could follow me."

* * *

The Agent… Burke… frowned. Again. "That leads me to another question that's been bothering me. Similar cases such as this have been popping up all over the country, many of them going back more than a century. How is that possible?"

_'Smart, this one,'_ the voice commented appreciatively. _'He'd make a good successor.'_

_'No,'_ he thought back. _'I don't need a successor just yet. I still have time.'_

_'Just keep telling yourself that, Daisuke. I'm sure it'll come true if you keep wishing hard enough.'_

_'I told you to stop calling me by that name.'_

_'Argue with me later. The human is getting impatient.'_

_'What do I tell him?'_

_'The truth.'_

"I am…" he paused as he contemplated the best way to phrase his sentence. The littlest word could make the biggest difference. "…Not the first."

"You mean you are successor to someone who did this before you?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"He has been dead for a very long time."

"Can you at least tell me his name?"

_'Heh,'_ the voice in his head laughed. _'He didn't have a name. That petty fool of a criminal renounced it long before he met me.'_

"He had no name."

The agent frowned again. He didn't believe anything that the former medicine-seller had said. "Do you?"

He blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift in the questions. And just when he'd managed to get the subject off of him, too…

"No."

_'Liar. You have a name, and you know it.'_

_'Shut up.'_

_'No. Tell the truth.'_

_'I did.'_

_'Daisuke. Your name is Daisuke.'_

"No!" he shouted aloud, slipping unconsciously into his native Japanese. "That name is not mine! Daisuke is dead!"

* * *

Alex stood with Alicia and the Coyles in front of the two-way mirror, watching as David spoke to the Man with the Painted Face.

"Is that the man you saw?" Alex asked. All three of them nodded gravely, as they continued to watch. Not one of them took their eyes off of the man even once.

Alicia shrieked in surprise when the Man with the Painted Face suddenly stood and began shouting…

* * *

With a cry, the Man with the Painted Face suddenly leapt to his feet, shouting at the top of his lungs in a language that David couldn't understand.

David stared at the man, alarmed at such a violent reaction in a person who had seemed, not only perfectly calm, but completely deadpan not a moment before. Without a moment's hesitation, he got to his feet, practically launched himself around the side of the table, took hold of the man's arm, and forced him back down into his seat.

The door slammed open to reveal Detective Travis, eyes wide with alarm.

"Hey!" David shouted, slapping the man's face. "Snap out of it!"

The man blinked and seemed to come to his senses. Those pale blue eyes which had seemed to gleam with an angry, almost feral light returned to their previous, blank state.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" David demanded, releasing his hold on the man's shoulders.

"Nothing is wrong…" the man muttered. "I am fine." Again, there was a moment when the man's face changed, going from blank façade to momentary scowl, but, like before, his expression was, once again, entirely unreadable barely a second later. He turned his head, staring into the pane of glass in the wall that made up the two way mirror.

"The people on the other side of that wall…" the man mused after a moment. "You might want to get them out of here."

"Why?" David asked, flustered. "And how do you know there are people out there right this moment?"

"It would not be safe for them to be here much longer."

"Why?" David repeated.

"It is coming," the man replied, still not taking his eyes off of the mirror. "No… that is not right… It is… already here. But it is waiting…" Somewhere during his muttering, the man slipped back into that other language of his. Japanese, it sounded like, now that David had a good chance to really listen to it.

"What did you say? What does that mean?" David asked, more than a little disconcerted by that point. _Something was coming? What?_

The Man with the Painted Face looked David directly in the eye, and in a voice that made David want to turn tail and run, said:

"It is here."

* * *

**Author's Note: **CLIFFHANGER!

Hehe, yes, I am being evil, aren't I? (this is the part where I grin mischievously at everyone)

Don't worry, next chapter is currently in the works, so you (hopefully) won't have long to wait. (As of 4/3/2011, chapter 4 is about a third of the way done)

Next Chapter: It begins…. Dun dun DUN!

(yes, I am hyper as a write these comments)

Please review! Constructive criticism is preferred, but any kind of feedback is loved and appreciated.


	5. Chapter 4: Reclaiming

**Disclaimer: **I do not, nor will I ever own Mononoke. I am merely toying with its main character to suit my own fangirl-ish tendencies.

**Author****'s Note: **Sorry about the delay, as always. Hope you enjoy this chapter! It's a little shorter than the last chapter, but that's because I found a reeeeeeeally good stopping point.

As always, thanks to my beta, ElisiansBane, for working with me on this story. You are awesome!

* * *

Himitsu Shinu

Chapter 4

Albany, New York

February 10, 2011

9:42 AM, EST

There was a surge in the lights. First, the room became so bright that he had to close his eyes. Then, a moment later, everything was plunged into darkness.

"What the hell was that?" he heard Agent Burke mutter a few feet away. "Power must've gone out." He heard the agent feel his way towards the door. A latch clicked and hinges creaked as the door was opened.

"Anyone know what caused that just now?"

"No," a voice from outside the room said. It was the other agent. What was her name…? Ortiz.

He got to his feet.

_'If you would,'_ he thought. The presence in his mind stirred.

'_Hnn.' _There was a shift of energy in the air, and the handcuffs on his wrists opened with a soft click. He caught them before they could fall to the floor and gently set them down on the table. _'Be sure you take better care of our body this time.'_

_'I will. Don't worry about me.'_

_'It's not you I'm worried about.'_ The voice fell silent.

He slipped past Agent Burke and the people out in the hall without being noticed. The Sword was close; he could feel its energies reaching out towards him. It was simply the matter of navigating the building and retrieving it before they got the lights back on.

No… they couldn't have been turned off. He could still hear the fluorescent lights humming gently above him, yet the room was pitch dark. And shouldn't there have been windows at some point?

Oh, right. It was the _mononoke._ He had forgotten they could do things like blotting out all light sources. Sudden darkness was often effective for sending humans into mass panic, but for him, in this case, it could possibly work in his favor.

He pressed himself against one wall as someone blindly stumbled past.

"What happened?" another person from down the hall was shouting.

People all over the building were calling to one another. Confusion, bewilderment, and panic were beginning to rise.

It seemed as though things were going to get very bad very fast.

Finally, he came to a door. It took him a moment to find the handle, and when he did, he found it was locked.

_'Care to help?'_

The voice in his head sighed. There was, once again, a shift of energy, albeit a reluctant one. He heard a click, and the door swung open. _'One of these days I'm just going to ignore you and let you do this on your own,_' the voice commented dryly.

As he stepped inside, he almost trod on the prone form of whoever was responsible for keeping this room secure.

_'Humans…'_ the voice in his head muttered. _'Probably was frightened by the dark and knocked himself out on accident.'_

_'No…'_ he replied. _'I can smell blood.'_

_'So the thing has killed already. Fast, this one. You're going to have to watch yourself this time.'_

'_I know.'_ He stepped over both the body and the blood that was surely pooling around the corpse by that point.

"Where are you…?" he whispered to himself. "There." Still moving in complete darkness, he made his way to a shelf near the back of the room. Sitting there amidst other items that were of no use to him was his backpack. Inside, he knew, was the Sword.

He wasted no time in reclaiming his belongings and taking hold of the Sword. And the moment his fingers closed around the Sword's hilt, the darkness lifted.

* * *

David jumped when the lights suddenly came back on. Or rather, it seemed as though he had been blindfolded, and the blindfold had been abruptly torn away. Alex was standing in front of him, as were who he assumed were Mr. and Mrs. Coyle and their granddaughter Alicia, all three of whom had been involved in the previous Painted Face Murder case. Detective Travis, who exited the room at the same time as David, had, it seemed, gone off somewhere.

Alex gasped. "David…"

"What?" He looked over at her to see that she was pointing into the room he had just left.

The room was empty.

And there were a pair of handcuffs lying innocently on the edge of the table.

"Did anyone see him leave?"

"No," Mr. Coyle scoffed. "It was pitch dark; I'll bet you that nobody saw him. Bastard probably used the power outage to escape. Hell, he probably made the whole thing happen!"

"Tom!" Mrs. Coyle scolded. "Language!"

"And how do you suppose he did that," Alex shot back, clearly irritated by the man. "He's been confined since late last night, not to mention handcuffed and under watch the entire time. There is no possible way that he could have done anything to have caused this."

Just then, Officer Carson came running towards them, a radio in his hand.

"Agents! You should come quickly!" he called to them. "Something's happened!" Carson turned to look at the Coyles. "I'm sorry about this whole mess. Someone will be with you in a moment to see you home. Agents, if you will."

The followed Carson to a room in another part of the building. It was the room where all personal effects of detainees were kept, as well as any evidence that had been collected. Lying face down in the middle of the floor was a man, most likely the officer in responsible for keeping an eye on that room. The man lay in a pool of his own blood.

He was dead.

What was most disturbing was that the dead man's throat seemed to have been cut out. And not just cut; it almost looked as though it had been clawed out by something.

David tugged a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and pulled them on as he knelt down next to the body. As he turned the corpse's head to get a better look, he nearly fell back in alarm.

The face was missing.

What was unusual was that there were no wounds on the face of any kind. It was as though someone had taken an eraser and wiped his features away, leaving a perfectly blank surface.

"My God," David whispered. "Alex, come take a look at this." Alex walked up behind him and bent down. She gasped.

"How is that even possible?"

"Because the thing that did this is not human."

Alex and David looked up to see the Man with the Painted Face standing in the doorway behind Travis. He had, it seemed, reclaimed his personal items: a ratty old backpack, violet headscarf (which had been wrapped around his head like a bandana, effectively restraining his long, pale hair, and an old, stained trench coat that he currently wore. Held tightly in his left hand was the strangest looking sword anyone had ever seen. It was a short blade, still sheathed, not even two feet long. Its sheath was of dark red wood, edged in gold and studded with gems. The hilt was decorated with what looked like some kind of shrunken monkey's head. Or was it an ogre…?

"You! How did you get past us without us realizing it?" David demanded, getting to his feet and glaring at the man.

"You were distracted," the man replied. "As I said, it was not a human that did this."

"What do you mean, 'not human'?"

"Exactly what I said."

"Alright…" David replied skeptically. "Assuming you're not lying—"

"I do not lie." A momentary scowl flickered across the man's face before returning to neutral.

"Assuming you're not lying," David repeated. "Then what did kill this man, if it wasn't a human?"

"A _mononoke_."

"Of course." David threw his hands into the air out from frustration. "You know what I think? I think you just want to blame a ghost on all this because you either don't have a clue, or you're the one who killed this man!"

The man blinked. "I did not kill this man," he replied calmly. He stepped forward and knelt down next to the body, pushing David aside. "Hnn." He examined the body's lack of face with his long, tapered fingers. The man's nostril's flared slightly and he narrowed his eyes as the tips of his fingers passed over where the eye sockets ought to have been. He muttered something under his breath that David wasn't able to catch.

Everyone in the room jumped when a scream from another part of the building rent the air. The Man with the Painted Face leapt to his feet and charged off in the direction of the scream.

* * *

He barreled through the hallways as fast as he could, not caring that he was knocking people aside. The sound of screams and the scent of blood led him back to the room where he had been questioned by Agent Burke. Huddled against one wall was the girl he had saved in the last _mononoke_ attack. What was her name…?

_'Later,'_ the voice in his head urged. _'Think about her name later. We have work to do.'_

On the floor lying face down were two people; a man and a woman. Blood was pooling around both forms. He guessed that the _mononoke_ had done the same thing to them as it had the police officer in the other room.

"I see," he whispered to himself. "This _mononoke_ has neither a face… nor a voice…" He raised his eyes to find himself staring into the shadowy mass that could only be the _mononoke._ It hadn't seemed to notice him just yet. Instead, it was focusing its attention on the girl. "You are a forgotten soul."

_Chink._

The jaws of the Sword's face snapped shut. The sound of it rang unnaturally in the hallway. The echo, it seemed, caught the _mononoke's_ attention. It turned to face him and began to approach. Three faces floated into being on its shadow-like body. The faces were heavily distorted, yet eerily recognizable as the faces of the people it had killed. The faces' empty, soulless eye sockets narrowed as if daring him to do something.

"Get back!" he shouted, pulling a small jar of salt from his bag. He opened the jar and pulled out a pinch of salt.

"Get back," he said again, tossing the salt at the beast. It recoiled when the salt touched it, making a low hissing noise as it did so.

"What the hell?" a voice from behind him shouted. He didn't take his eyes off of the _mononoke_, but he recognized the voice as belonging to Agent Burke.

Another man ran up to the scene, this time from the opposite direction. Panting, he skidded to a stop when he saw the _mononoke._

"Detective Travis, get back!" the female agent, Ortiz, shouted from the same direction as Agent Burke. The man called Travis whimpered and pulled out his gun.

One shot was fired.

Two.

A third.

All three shots went straight through the _mononoke._ It turned to face Travis. A wide slit beneath the stolen faces opened in a vicious, silent snarl. Travis dropped his gun and backed away, but before he could turn tail and run, the _mononoke_ lunged, enveloping him in a suffocating, deadly embrace.

"Move!" he shouted to the four people behind him. "Get in that room! NOW!"

They followed his order without question, all hurrying to get inside the small interrogation room a fast as humanly possible.

He tried not to listen to the blood-curdling wails of the human detective as the _mononoke_ fed. He blocked it all from his mind as best as he could while he spilled the remainder of his salt in front of the door to the interrogation room. Once he was done, he stepped inside, and slammed the door shut behind him.

Once inside, he pulled his paper seals out of his backpack and began applying them to the walls. The walls were covered in scraps of white paper in moments, each one gaining its black ink design. As the screaming outside the room had stopped and none of the seals were turning red, it was clear that the _mononoke_ had moved on.

"We should be safe here for a while," he said, settling down cross-legged in one corner of the room. Even while sitting, he did not relax even for a moment. Instead, he kept glancing up at the hundreds of paper seals that plastered the walls, making sure that they were not turning red. With one hand, he fished around in his newly reclaimed backpack for his scales. When he found one, he took it out and balanced it on the end of his finger.

"What is that?" Agent Ortiz asked. She sat on the other side of the small room with the girl –Alicia! Yes, that was her name— held tightly in her arms.

"Scales," he replied. He twitched his finger ever so slightly, causing the scales to rise into the air, where they hovered for a moment before flipping upside down and settling in the very center of the ceiling. "They measure the distance between us and the _mononoke._"

"How do they work?"

He blinked. "I don't know…" It was true. So many centuries, and he had never once questioned how his precious scales worked. They had just been something he had always accepted without a second thought.

More scales followed the first until they covered the ceiling.

"So? How far away is it?" Agent Burke asked from where he sat next to his partner.

"Not far," he replied, looking up at the scales. "But it will not come for us just yet."

"How do you know?"

"Experience," was the simple reply. "After killing so many in such a short time, it will need to rest before it can attack again."

"How long?"

He glanced at the male agent. "Do you want a hopeful guess? Or a realistic estimate?"

"Both, I guess."

"It is possible that we have an hour, maybe two before it tries to break the barriers I have placed. Any more than that would be wishful thinking." He paused, gauging the _mononoke's _whereabouts. It was moving around on the other side of the building. "Thirty minutes would be a more likely span of time, however."

Alicia whimpered.

"Which is why," he continued, "there are two things that I need to know as soon as possible."

"You need to know?" The Officer –what was his name, again? Carson; that was it— scoffed from his corner near the door. "More like we need to know. What the _hell_ is going on here?"

He fished around in his backpack again and almost smiled when his fingers met the familiar surface of the Sword of Exorcism.

"I need to know…" he began as he pulled the Sword out of the backpack. "The _mononoke's_ _makoto_ and _kotowari._ You must tell them to me now, before it comes back."

* * *

**Author****'s Note: **Another chapter, over. Please review! I thrive off of constructive criticism, but feedback of any kind is appreciated.


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